THE JOINT RESOLUTIONS-TEXAS ANNEXED.

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tiate with Mexico on the subject. Thus manifesting a CHAP. desire to respect the rights of Mexico as a nation with whom we were at peace, and at least make an effort to 1844. obtain the annexation with her consent, and also the settlement of boundaries.

By a clause in the resolutions the President was authorized to adopt either plan. The joint resolutions were passed on Saturday, the 2d of March; Tyler would leave office two days later. The President elect, James K. Polk, had intimated that if the question came before him he should adopt the Senate's plan, by which it was hoped an amicable arrangement could be made with Mexico. The retiring President, and his Secretary of State, chose to adopt the mode of annexation proposed in the House resolutions. A messenger was sent on Sunday night the 3d, to carry the proposition with all speed to the Legislature of Texas.

The opposition to annexing slaveholding territory to the Union was so great that Texas came in by compromise. Provision was made that four additional States might be formed out of the Territory when it should become sufficiently populous. Those States lying north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, north latitude-the Missouri Compromise line-were to be free States; those south of the line, to "be admitted into the Union with or without slavery as the people of each State asking admission may desire." To the original State, the right was accorded to prevent any State being formed out of her territory, by refusing her consent to the measure. Texas acceded to 1845 the proposition, and thus became one of the United States. Her population now amounted to two hundred thousand.

For nearly two hundred years the people of Rhode Island had lived under the charter granted by Charles II. This instrument was remarkable for the liberal provisions

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CHAP. it contained. The desire to change this charter gave rise to two parties, the "Suffrage," and "The Law and 1845. Order;" each determined to secure to their own party the administration of affairs, and each elected State officers. Thomas W. Dorr, elected governor by the Suffrage party, tried to seize the State arsenal; the militia 1843. were called out by the other party, and he was compelled May to flee. In a second attempt his party was overpowered by citizen soldiers, and he himself arrested, brought to trial, convicted of treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life; but some time afterward he was pardoned. A free constitution was in the mean time adopted by the people, under which they are now living.

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Almost the last official act of President Tyler was to sign the bill for the admission of Iowa and Florida into the Union. "Two States, which seem to have but few things in common to put them together-one the oldest, the other the newest territory-one in the extreme northwest of the Union, the other in the extreme south-eastone the land of evergreens and perpetual flowers, the other the climate of long and rigorous winter-one maintaining, the other repulsing slavery."

CHAPTER LI

POLK'S ADMINISTRATION.

The Presidential Canvass.-Difficulties with Mexico.-General Taylor at Corpus Christi.-Oregon Territory; respective Claims to.-Settlement of Boundary.-Taylor marches to the Rio Grande.-Thornton's Party surprised.-Attack on Fort Brown.--Battle of Palo Alto; of Resaca de la Palma.-Matamoras occupied.-Measures of Congress.-The Volunteers. Plan of Operations.-Mexico declares War.-General Wool.-General Worth.-The Capture of Monterey.

LI.

ON the 4th of March, James Knox Polk, of Tennessee, SHAP. was inaugurated President, and George Mifflin Dallas, of Pennsylvania, Vice-President; James Buchanan was ap- 1945. pointed Secretary of State.

The canvass had been one of unusual interest and spirit. The candidates of the Whig party were Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen. The questions involved were the admission of Texas, and the settlement of the boundary line on the north-west, between the British possessions and Oregon. The latter-for the Whigs were also in favor of its settlement-thrown in by the successful party.

The result of the election was assumed to be the expression of the will of the people in relation to the admission of Texas, which measure, as we have seen, the expiring administration had already consummated. We have now to record the events, the consequences in part of that measure.

Though France and England, as well as the United